Paul Hobbs Winery

Aligning a website with the spirt of its founder

Paul Hobbs is recognized around the globe for his contributions to wine. The website redesign for his eponymous home base was initiated as part of a larger effort to realign Paul Hobbs Winery’s brand with its founder’s approach and spirit of embracing both the scientific and the intuitive.

The website breaks convention with a split-screen layout. A nod to nature’s ever-present duality, the “pages” are turned via sliding panels – the left panel speaking to the emotional and artistic side of the brand with a series of editorial-style stories, the right presenting objective and technical information from site navigation to matter-of-fact content.

Creating a branded illustration style

Before studying enology and viticulture at UC Davis, Paul was a pre-med student at Notre Dame. As a nod to this personal history, we collaborated closely with illustrator Marjorie Leggittto create an illustration style for the brand that would subtly reflect the scientific nature of Paul’s approach to winemaking. This illustrative approach also meets the needs of a very specific objective: drawing attention to what makes a plot of land viticulturally exceptional without getting obscured or distracted by the visual beauty of a sweeping landscape photo. The commissioned series of textbook-style detailed leaves, illustrations, and diagrams capture the aspects of the land most important to wine growing and making.

Documentary photography that gives outsiders a look within

We commissioned photojournalist Erik Castro to show what happens behind the scenes at Paul Hobbs Winery, while also giving a glimpse into the mindset of the man behind it all.